ABSTRACT
This chapter contributes to the critical prison studies literature that demonstrates the historical embeddedness of prisons and policing in Canada and the U.S. in the institutions of white supremacy, settler colonialism, and slavery. However, it does so by focusing on the rarely discussed figures of the police and prison dog. The chapter also contributes to the growing critical animal studies literature that examines the imbrications of white and human supremacy. In the first sections of the chapter we trace the history of canines deployed as weapons in racial control and terror, specifically the use of dogs for tracking runaway slaves, hunting and killing Indigenous persons, and controlling prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. Next, we situate the contemporary police dog in this history. Throughout, we consider the historical and contemporary weaponization of canines not only from critical race and decolonial perspectives, but also from the vantage point of critical animal studies. Finally, we analyze representations of police dogs in children’s literature, and the paradoxical use of police dogs as police propaganda more generally.
